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CALGARY — Most smartphone applications are harmless forms of entertainment and a fun way to waste time.

But police and technology experts are cautioning unsuspecting women to be wary of “creepy” apps that reveal photos and personal information to potential stalkers.

One such app, Girls Around Me, sparked online outrage recently from critics who say it takes advantage of those who don’t understand privacy policies on sites like Facebook.

Girls Around Me is part of a new breed of “social discovery apps” used by people to track the whereabouts of friends and co-workers using mobile devices.

In most cases, users are willing participants. But an app like Girls Around Me is different in that it allows strangers — in this case, men — to pull data from Facebook and Foursquare accounts to access a treasure trove of information about females in their vicinity.

A man looking to meet a woman at a bar, for instance, can learn her age, home town, profession and view her private pictures — all while she is unaware her personal information is being accessed.

The Girls Around Me website promoted its iPhone app with a sexy female silhouette and the words: “In the mood for love, or just a one-night stand? Girls Around Me puts you in control!”

Bloggers were quick to slam the controversial app, and Girls Around Me has since been removed from the iTunes store. In a letter to the Wall Street Journal, the app’s Russian developers said it was only designed “to make geo-social exploration of popular venues easy and visual.”

But the app flap continues to raise unsettling questions about privacy rights and the potential for online predators to do harm.

In the case of Girls Around Me, a man could approach a woman in a bar armed with personal details about her life gleaned entirely from social media.

The technology is invasive and in the wrong hands could even be dangerous, said Tom Keenan, a professor in the University’s Calgary’s faculty of environmental design.

“It’s creepy and it sets people up for opportunistic stalking, there’s no question,” he said.

Keenan, who wrote his first computer program at Princeton in 1965, follows technology trends closely and is amazed at the ways men and women unwittingly put themselves in compromising positions online.

A big part of the problem is people feel the need to “over share” every detail of their lives — and that, argues Keenan, inadvertently plays into the hands of stalkers and other criminals.

“It’s the fear of missing out. There’s a whole generation of people who don’t want to miss a single thing, and they voluntarily give up their privacy as a result,” he says.

It creates a challenge for law enforcement, which is trying to address the issue by educating people on the importance of taking advantage of privacy settings on sites like Facebook and exercising common sense.

But it’s difficult to stay a step ahead of the technology, admits Staff Sgt. Kathy Macdonald of the Calgary Police Service.

“It changes on a daily if not hourly basis, and the pool of victims includes the young and the very old.”

Macdonald recommends people use passwords to protect their mobile device and exercise caution about what they choose to downloaded onto phones and tablets.

It comes as red flags are being raised about apps like Badabing, designed to surreptitiously scour someone’s Facebook friends for pictures of women in bikinis that can then be bookmarked and shared. Child exploitation groups say these sorts of apps provide tools to help pedophiles trawl for snapshots of underdressed children.

“Be careful of the pictures you take, and never post a photo that you don’t want the world to see. Be aware that some of these apps are created for good and bad purposes. It depends on what a person’s intent is when they start using them,” Macdonald says.

Nevertheless, some Facebook users are under the misguided belief that ironclad privacy settings are enough to thwart snoopers with dubious intentions.

The settings help a lot. But it’s also important to remain vigilant about the kind of information you are willing to make public.

Many apps on the market automatically try to get users to share certain kinds of data when they sign up.

“But with the best of intentions, that can change if you download an app and allow it to twist the settings in its favour.”

tgignac@calgaryherald.comTwitter: TamaraGignac

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